Why this Mzungu have the audacity to expose Jamaica lik this

[neutral]

Re: Why this Mzungu have the audacity to expose Jamaica lik

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Dr.Dudd</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Where is my good friend TuffGong??

</div></div>

LOL !

[Marielle]

Re: Why this Mzungu have the audacity to expose Jamaica lik

just been reading about this book at the weekend, he has been awarded 2 prizes for it, odaantje and dolman

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jun/13/dead-yard-ian-thomson-review

my thoughts exactly: (not the only religion that thinks like that...)

<span style="font-style: italic">In an encounter with the Rastafarian cult of Bobo Shanti, Thomson is appalled by their hatred of gays, and by the practice of packing their women off to a medical ward when they are &quot;sick&quot; (menstruating).</span>

here's the link for the dolman prize (never heard of it).
(comments below the article).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/jul/07/dead-yard-dolman-travel-book-award

as for the commemts, I could relate to this one: (bold, my thoughts):

<span style="font-style: italic">I live in Jamaica and wasn't overly impressed with the Dead Yard. Thompson obviously did a lot of travelling around the island but seems to have managed to speak to groups of people who are overwhelming negative - the very wealthy whites (who moan about days of glory long past for them), inner-city residents (who are understandably negative about their situations) and returning residents (who always long for the days gone by before they left Jamaica when they will still young etc).

<span style="font-weight: bold">He doesn't seem to speak to anyone in the middle - a teacher, a doctor, anyone not livign at the 'extremes' </span>

In addition, he seems to dedicate more pages to those who promote a more negative version of the island. For example, <span style="font-weight: bold">he mentioned speaking to Rex Nettleford - a foremost Caribbean cultural anthropologist/dancer/sociologist etc. Yet this conversation comprises about 1 paragraph of his book - someone who has studied Jamaica like Rex is in my mind worth a lot of attention than an elderly returning resident who barely ventures outside their own house.</span></span>

[jah_yout]

Re: Why this Mzungu have the audacity to expose Jamaica lik

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">In an encounter with the Rastafarian cult of Bobo Shanti, Thomson is appalled by their hatred of gays, and by the practice of packing their women off to a medical ward when they are &quot;sick&quot; (menstruating).</div></div>

yes Marielle it is the same hidden agenda behind his work...

yet some of us are so excited to see a 'white' person discuss our problems that we latch onto it without seriously analyzing everything he is saying/implying...

fiyah haffi bun anytime some guy come into my yard and describe my people as 'cultists'...
a more fire...

as if he could analyze the situation better than my own who come from there have been doing all this time

[neutral]

Re: Why this Mzungu have the audacity to expose Jamaica lik

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">In an encounter with the Rastafarian cult of Bobo Shanti, Thomson is appalled by their hatred of gays, and by the practice of packing their women off to a medical ward when they are &quot;sick&quot; (menstruating).</div></div>

yes Marielle it is the same hidden agenda behind his work...

yet some of us are so excited to see a 'white' person discuss our problems that we latch onto it without seriously analyzing everything he is saying/implying...

fiyah haffi bun anytime some guy come into my yard and describe my people as 'cultists'...
a more fire...

as if he could analyze the situation better than my own who come from there have been doing all this time </div></div>

Yet he speaks the truth.

[Panajar]

Re: Why this Mzungu have the audacity to expose Jamaica lik

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Marielle</div><div class="ubbcode-body">



as for the commemts, I could relate to this one: (bold, my thoughts):

[i]I live in Jamaica and wasn't overly impressed with the Dead Yard. Thompson obviously did a lot of travelling around the island but seems to have managed to speak to groups of people who are overwhelming negative - the very wealthy whites (who moan about days of glory long past for them), inner-city residents (who are understandably negative about their situations) and returning residents (who always long for the days gone by before they left Jamaica when they will still young etc).

<span style="font-weight: bold">He doesn't seem to speak to anyone in the middle - a teacher, a doctor, anyone not livign at the 'extremes' </span>

</div></div>

Are you sure you want to hear what the average teacher or doctor have to say? let me give a hint 90% of these individuals want a chance to leave that former slave plantation island.Most of these people stand little or no chance of making it &quot;financially&quot; ,due the entrenchment of a financial apartheid system, which exist to this day on that wrenched isle. As the the author states <span style="color: #660000"><span style="font-size: 11pt">&quot;However white Jamaicans still wield huge (if not uncontested ) power; the Jamaica created by the merchant -capitalist of slavery has survived&quot;</span> </span> nuff said

[johnnycakes]

Re: Why this Mzungu have the audacity to expose Jamaica lik

&quot;Where is my good friend TuffGong??

This topic need balance.
We need the other perspective. &quot;


Doc,
Tuff Gong has absented himself because I keep asking him for proof that I hired machete wielding Jamaican to guard my house and other things that he hallucinated.

He cannot post anything without my asking him for proof of his spurious claim or an admission that what he claims is not true.

He has no credibility here.

[blugiant]

Re: Why this Mzungu have the audacity to expose Jamaica lik

sum mzungu more cancious dan sum wannabee mzungu jamaicans




<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Panajar</div><div class="ubbcode-body">





<span style="color: #FF0000"><span style="font-size: 14pt">The following snippet was taken from the book Titled...The Dead Yard: Tales of Modern Jamaica. by Ian Thompson.</span></span>

&quot;<span style="font-size: 14pt">The island’s class and racial divides remained stubbornly in place.</span> The problem of colour-line continues to haunt Jamaica. The lighter your complexion, the more privilege you are likely to be. An insidious ‘shadism’ has endured that a minority of white (or near white: what Jamaicans call local <span style="color: #990000">whites) inhabitants still control the plantations and other industries</span> ,while the black population remain separated from them by the powerlessness of the poverty of their lives .The frequent appearance in the dead yard of white and upper -echelon Jamaicans might suggest a skewed image of island society .<span style="color: #CC0000"><span style="font-size: 14pt">However white Jamaicans still wield huge (if not uncontested ) power; the Jamaica created by the merchant -capitalist of slavery has survived</span> </span>.So anxious are some Jamaicans to whiten up that they use skin-bleaches-a sad after - effect of the aristocracy of skin nurtured by the British during slavery&quot;.

I have nothing but respect for the author of this book .We finally have someone that, <span style="font-weight: bold">the real rulers</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold">roast breadfruits</span> cannot call a racist, for exposing the dirty secrets of that ill fated, former slave plantation island called Jamaica.Everything written in this snippet is the truth and nothing but the truth.This will make some people uncomfortable,since they were conditioned to pretend that these things don't exist in the land of one love and out of many one people.The main reason for posting this is to unsettle my fellow Jamaicans who put dem head ina san like ostrich bud.
Read more at amazon...THIS SNIPPET CAN BE FOUND ON PAGE 5.. AMAZON UK </div></div>

[jah_yout]

Re: Why this Mzungu have the audacity to expose Jamaica lik

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Natral</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">In an encounter with the Rastafarian cult of Bobo Shanti, Thomson is appalled by their hatred of gays, and by the practice of packing their women off to a medical ward when they are &quot;sick&quot; (menstruating).</div></div>

yes Marielle it is the same hidden agenda behind his work...

yet some of us are so excited to see a 'white' person discuss our problems that we latch onto it without seriously analyzing everything he is saying/implying...

fiyah haffi bun anytime some guy come into my yard and describe my people as 'cultists'...
a more fire...

as if he could analyze the situation better than my own who come from there have been doing all this time </div></div>

Yet he speaks the truth. </div></div>

i guess you don't know that someone can speak on one thing accurately yet speak on another thing in-accurately

[jah_yout]

Re: Why this Mzungu have the audacity to expose Jamaica lik

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: franksterr</div><div class="ubbcode-body">It is a left over of our colonial experience, and is seem everywhere Europeans encounter other peoples that they colonized. From S.Korea to China*.
India is the birth place of colorism and still the home of discrimination based on skin color.
In the Arab world and those dominated by Arab culture there is colorism, but unlike the west it does not and never has blocked social mobility

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwSXX-tTKJk </div></div>



a few 'black' africans in darfur and other parts might disagree

[julie*mango]

Re: Why this Mzungu have the audacity to expose Jamaica lik

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: blakkgiant</div><div class="ubbcode-body">sum mzungu more cancious dan sum wannabee mzungu jamaicans </div></div>

realest ting mi eva hear yu seh

[jah_yout]

Re: Why this Mzungu have the audacity to expose Jamaica lik

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Panajar</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Marielle</div><div class="ubbcode-body">



as for the commemts, I could relate to this one: (bold, my thoughts):

[i]I live in Jamaica and wasn't overly impressed with the Dead Yard. Thompson obviously did a lot of travelling around the island but seems to have managed to speak to groups of people who are overwhelming negative - the very wealthy whites (who moan about days of glory long past for them), inner-city residents (who are understandably negative about their situations) and returning residents (who always long for the days gone by before they left Jamaica when they will still young etc).

<span style="font-weight: bold">He doesn't seem to speak to anyone in the middle - a teacher, a doctor, anyone not livign at the 'extremes' </span>

</div></div>

Are you sure you want to hear what the average teacher or doctor have to say? let me give a hint 90% of these individuals want a chance to leave that former slave plantation island.Most of these people stand little or no chance of making it &quot;financially&quot; ,due the entrenchment of a financial apartheid system, which exist to this day on that wrenched isle. As the the author states <span style="color: #660000"><span style="font-size: 11pt">&quot;However white Jamaicans still wield huge (if not uncontested ) power; the Jamaica created by the merchant -capitalist of slavery has survived&quot;</span> </span> nuff said </div></div>


and exactly where is it that the black man wields huge (if not uncontested) economic power?

since when did it become news that the beneficiaries of the global system of enslavement &amp; colonization for the purpose of attaining riches were/are so-called &quot;white/mzungu/caucasian&quot; european &amp; european-descent people...

and the black man on the $hitty end of that stick...

and what does mr. ian suggest jamaica do?
where is he from and has he acknowledged the crimes committed by his own people against the african?

the masses of brainwashed afri-jamaicans may get something from this, but the original man who heeds the words of the prophets can offer a far better analysis of the african-jamaican &amp; the african on a whole's plight far better than mr. trevor or mr. ian;

tell these new-age jamaicans to go pick up a book written by marcus garvey or j.a. rogers or claude mcckay and start respecting their own prophets before they run go worship the white man again...

[jah_yout]

Re: Why this Mzungu have the audacity to expose Jamaica lik

<span style="font-size: 14pt">But there are points where I take issue with Thomson. <span style="font-weight: bold">His observation that Jamaica has &quot;no religion or civilization of its own&quot;</span>

is a rather Naipaulian perspective on Caribbean life that I find both offensive and inaccurate.


T<span style="font-weight: bold">his lack of insight is a product of the book's greater flaw, which is the author's inability to grasp the interiority of Jamaican life in all its vibrancy and warmth and pathos.</span> The reader of The Dead Yard is left with an astute understanding of what ails the island but very little sense of what it feels like to be a Jamaican.</span>
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entert...---------------

<span style="font-style: italic">i have no white god
don't teach me anything wrong
would the white god save me
from white man oppression</span>

[johnnycakes]

Re: Why this Mzungu have the audacity to expose Jamaica lik

&quot;And exactly where is it that the black man wields huge (if not uncontested) economic power?

since when did it become news that the beneficiaries of the global system of enslavement &amp; colonization for the purpose of attaining riches were/are so-called &quot;white/mzungu/caucasian&quot; european &amp; european-descent people...

and the black man on the $hitty end of that stick...

and what does mr. ian suggest jamaica do?
where is he from and has he acknowledged the crimes committed by his own people against the african?

the masses of brainwashed afri-jamaicans may get something from this, but the original man who heeds the words of the prophets can offer a far better analysis of the african-jamaican &amp; the african on a whole's plight far better than mr. trevor or mr. ian;

tell these new-age jamaicans to go pick up a book written by marcus garvey or j.a. rogers or claude mcckay and start respecting their own prophets before they run go worship the white man again...




The problems of Jamaica begin and end with the slavish adherence to capitalism.
Jamaicans would do better reading Marx and the speeches of Fidel Castro to see where a better future lies.
The writings of Garvey and the prophets of the past do not have the advantage of the years since they were writing and the evolution of nations freeing themselves from the racist capitalism that has the poor countries of the world, indeed, half the people of the world living lives of quiet despair.

Capitalism is racist and as long as capitalism rules the whiter peoples who now hold the power and wealth will continue to do so.

Jamaica was declared independent from the Crown but never from the real problem that created the inequalities of Jamaican society and that is the economic system.

Those inequalities that create a society of haves and have nots have engendered the gangs, the corruption, the illiteracy, the despair that are making life so difficult in Jamaica.

Things are not getting better, they are getting worse.

Independence from the British Empire changed nothing.

It is only when the Jamaican people abolish capitalism that the horrid conditions the mzungu and everyone else ascribes to Jamaica will have any chance for change.

There is no peace without economic justice.

[jah_yout]

Re: Why this Mzungu have the audacity to expose Jamaica lik

jah_yout said:
<span style="font-style: italic">&quot;And exactly where is it that the black man wields huge (if not uncontested) economic power?

since when did it become news that the beneficiaries of the global system of enslavement &amp; colonization for the purpose of attaining riches were/are so-called &quot;white/mzungu/caucasian&quot; european &amp; european-descent people...

and the black man on the $hitty end of that stick...

and what does mr. ian suggest jamaica do?
where is he from and has he acknowledged the crimes committed by his own people against the african?

the masses of brainwashed afri-jamaicans may get something from this, but the original man who heeds the words of the prophets can offer a far better analysis of the african-jamaican &amp; the african on a whole's plight far better than mr. trevor or mr. ian;

tell these new-age jamaicans to go pick up a book written by marcus garvey or j.a. rogers or claude mcckay and start respecting their own prophets before they run go worship the white man again...
</span>

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
johnnycakes said:
<span style="font-style: italic">The problems of Jamaica begin and end with the slavish adherence to capitalism.
Jamaicans would do better reading Marx and the speeches of Fidel Castro to see where a better future lies.
The writings of Garvey and the prophets of the past do not have the advantage of the years since they were writing and the evolution of nations freeing themselves from the racist capitalism that has the poor countries of the world, indeed, half the people of the world living lives of quiet despair.

Capitalism is racist and as long as capitalism rules the whiter peoples who now hold the power and wealth will continue to do so.

Jamaica was declared independent from the Crown but never from the real problem that created the inequalities of Jamaican society and that is the economic system.

Those inequalities that create a society of haves and have nots have engendered the gangs, the corruption, the illiteracy, the despair that are making life so difficult in Jamaica.

Things are not getting better, they are getting worse.

Independence from the British Empire changed nothing.

It is only when the Jamaican people abolish capitalism that the horrid conditions the mzungu and everyone else ascribes to Jamaica will have any chance for change.

There is no peace without economic justice.</span>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



i agree economic justice is a fundamental requirement...

but karl marx could not teach the afrikan knowledge of self...
which is the basic requirement before any real progress can be made...
it is the foundation...
self-hate will always lead to exploitation--economic or otherwise...
there have been socialistic &amp; communal societies in africa for thousands of years so there is a history there...

they must know who they are then they can study marx or whoever else in the proper context..

[rudemonk]

Re: Why this Mzungu have the audacity to expose Jamaica lik

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">&quot;
Capitalism is racist and as long as capitalism rules the whiter peoples who now hold the power and wealth will continue to do so.
</div></div>

johnny- i would only add or point out here that it's not entirely accurate to say capitalism is 'racist' in the sense of how we tend to use the word these days.

franksterr and I were having a bit of a discussion with some other posters about this topic.

human nature, as humans form social groups and create needs for what are sometimes limited resources, are *generally* exploitive.

you can take any block of time from our history, any bock of interacting cultures, any geographic area, and find this simple maxim to be true...

i believe the maxim power tends to corrupt.

more and more it would seem the issue is one inherent in the formation of culture and mythologizing justifications for control of the competition for resources.

think about it, culture automatically creates an &quot;us&quot; and(vs) &quot;them&quot; matrix against which all interactions are played, and which causes so much of the incredible human suffering observable throughout time, all the way back to when we first left the african savannas and our line of modern humans would be recognized as such, and probably before, as the animal kingdom is also resplete with examples of social models based on exploitation as survival.